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I stand over my teed-up ball and glance at my target. A lake lines the left-hand side of the fairway. Billowing trees shade the right. Someone whispers, "Just get it off the tee, dude." I swing and hear a groan. Then I see something jackrabbitting across the desert floor and coming to rest right behind a sage bush maybe 20 feet away. My ball.

"I'd just pick up," says my caddy-for-the-day, Jacob Richards, a stick-thin 16-year-old with designs on one day playing on the Tour. According to pro-am etiquette, if one is out of a hole, one should pocket one's ball. I walk with Davis and watch him smoothly sink a par-saving putt.

On our second hole, a par-3, I'm last off the tee again. Richards hands me my trusty 6-iron. I stare down the flag. Redemption time. I swing and top the ball, which rolls meekly and stops just short of the ladies' tees. "You know what that means," says Davis with a mischievous smile. I do. It has many names--a spotted elephant, a Texas Leaguer and others unfit for a family publication. What it requires of its offender is also unfit for a family publication and, I decide, a pro-am. "You'd better pick up," says Richards. I'm on pace for 18 swings for the day.

My round--and what's left of my pride--rests on our third hole, a 399-yard par-4. If I fail here, I'm pretty much cooked. "Take a deep breath, mate," counsels Davis. I finally get my tee shot off the ground. It slices and barely misses a small pond, ending up in the rough, 30 yards behind a copse of trees. "Well, at least you have a second shot this time," says Davis. True enough. I go on to par the hole, which means a net birdie for my team (I'm an 18-handicap, and the best score from the fivesome is counted on each hole). After I par the next three holes in succession, my caddy turns a cynical eye toward me. "No way you're an 18-handicap," says Richards, implying that I am the worst kind of golfing scoundrel: the sandbagger. (Did I mention that Richards was cutting school that day?)

But, honestly, I'm just happy to be here. A PGA Tour pro-am is a unique event: In no other major sport can an amateur actually play with a pro. Not in tennis or baseball. Not, unless you are George Plimpton, in football. (Though it might be fun to see a doughy senior manager climb into the cage in an Ultimate Fighting Championship pro-am.)

The history of golf pro-ams is a bit fuzzy. Some believe the idea was hatched, like golf itself, in Scotland, near the turn of the last century. What's for certain is that the modern version was created by Bing Crosby, who started hosting his annual "clambake" in 1937. Crosby's idea (which has since morphed into the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am) was to pair pros with low-handicap celebrities and business titans, a reward for the game's biggest financial supporters.

But these days there is room for relatively high handicappers (like me) who are neither famous nor corner-office executives. Cash and connections still don't hurt, though. The fee for a spot in the Waste Management pro-am ranged from $4,300 (for Monday's pro-am) to $9,500 (for Wednesday's), which is the standard rate. But the AT&T pro-am will set you back a cool $25,000. Part of the money raised by pro-ams is used by the title sponsor to help defray tournament-hosting costs (Waste Management spends up to $20 million on its event). Another part of it goes to the PGA Tour's charity efforts (more than $120 million in 2010). "They are the most important days of the week in a tournament," says Ross Berlin, player affairs director for the PGA Tour.

Most events have two pro-ams: The Monday one is attended by 20 pros, usually youngsters or players looking to get in an extra day of practice. Wednesday is the big event, where the best and most interesting 52 players in the field will take part. Even big shots like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are obligated to play, though they are usually reserved for the tourney's biggest sponsors. (Woods even had to play in pro-ams last year after his personal life became tabloid fodder.) The rest of the players are entered into a random draw.